Front seal..

[Jamie Miles]

I have a 1980 200/SROD 4 speed in my '72 Maverick.. Engine has developed a severe oil leak around the harmonic balancer. I'm loosing about a quart of oil every 100 miles and the oil is getting on the pulleys causing the belt to slip so bad that the alternator will nearly stop charging. I removed the balancer and discovered there is actually a relatively deep groove worn into the shaft of the balancer where it contacts the front main seal. I'm assuming this happened due to a seal that's gotten old and hardened up, but it seems strange none the less.

How hard is the seal in the timing cover to replace? Will I have to drop the oil pan? Has anyone ever heard of a groove being worn into the balancer by the seal, or is the grove supposed to be there?

Thanks

 

[bubba22349]

How hard is the seal in the timing cover to replace? Will I have to drop the oil pan? Has anyone ever heard of a groove being worn into the balancer by the seal, or is the grove supposed to be there?

The seal is not too hard to replace but you will need to pull the front cover off it can be done with or without dropping the oil pan. Yes I have seen quite a number of groves worn into balancer's of many different engines, it is not suppose to be there. There are a number of brands of seals to work with and sometimes the replacement seals are made so that the lip runs in a new area of the balancer. For some engines they made a part called a seal saver that slips on to cover over the grove and of course you can also replace the balancer with another unit or a rebuilt one.

 

[JackFish]

The rebuilt dampers from Damper Doctor have sleeves on the shaft.
You could probably get one from them if you choose to do it yourself.

 

[First Fox]

No need to replace the balancer. There are repair sleeves that can bought for under 10 bucks that you place over the balancer snout and the new seal rides against the newly installed sleeve. They make them for rear main journals also when this happens. It is a common problem, and this is a great solution for it.

 

[Henning_1966]

Most quality parts stores can get speedy sleeves for lots of stuff including this.

 

[wsa111]

After you have removed the timing cover, take it to a machine shop & have them remove the outer lip.
Then if you ever have to replace the seal again all you do is remove the pulley & you will be able to replace the seal from the outside.
Caution the machine shop no to enlarge the original inner diameter.
Jackfish is right in possibly replacing the pulley just because of being oil soaked which softens the rubber between the outer ring & inner hub.
If your original pulley ring is secure to the hub, get a repair sleeve kit & install the sleeve with the supplied loctite stud-sleeve retainer compound.
Another good idea is if the ring has not rotated on the hub or if you install a new pulley is to either center punch a mark on the ring & another center punch on the hub adjacent to one another or scribe or file a slight groove between the ring & hub. The reason for this is to ever see if the ring has rotated on the hub in the future which is common. Bill